REDMOND, Wash.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Today’s launch of two new software titles will have people broadening their artistic horizons and deepening their love of creative wordplay. Art Academy: Lessons for Everyone!and Crosswords Plus are now available for the portable Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo 3DS XL systems, giving consumers a variety of fun ways to learn about how to draw and paint or challenge their puzzle-solving skills anytime, anywhere.

“Art Academy: Lessons for Everyone! lets everyone learn about how to draw and paint creatively, regardless of their current skill levels,” said Scott Moffitt, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of Sales & Marketing. “And Crosswords Plus is a blast whether you’re a vocabulary enthusiast or just love solving word puzzles. Both of these new titles offer something for everyone, whether you consider yourself a traditional gamer or not.”

With Art Academy: Lessons for Everyone!, people of any artistic skill level can learn to unleash their imaginations using varying painting and drawing techniques. The skills learned can be easily transferred to real-life art projects. An in-game tutor guides users through more than 30 new lessons covering numerous concepts, including techniques for paints, pastels, sketch pencils and colored pencils. Each lesson can be completed at users’ own pace and paused for later completion. Art Academy also features Free Paint mode, which encourages users to let their creativity run wild. Players also can take photos using their system’s built-in camera and use those images as the subject of a new drawing. Users can also purchase additional lessons from within the game to further hone their artistic skills. There are two lesson packs available at launch with additional lesson packs available in the future.

Crosswords Plus lets users try to solve more than 1,000 professionally designed different crossword puzzles at a variety of different skill levels. Players use the touch screen to input their answers, and a helpful hint system will give clues or fill in letters when they get stuck. Crosswords Plus also includes word-search and anagram puzzles and a vocabulary-building Word of the Day feature. Additionally, with giant-sized puzzles, players will feel more like they are working through multiple crossword puzzles at a time. Players can also use a broadband Internet connection to access additional puzzles via SpotPass. They can even receive and share puzzles with other Nintendo 3DS owners using the built-in StreetPass feature. In the U.S. and Canada, players can also receive exclusive puzzle distributions from a Nintendo Zone location. Nintendo Zone locations offer a free and automatic connection to Wi-Fi and can be found by visiting http://www.nintendo.com/3ds/nintendozone.

Shoppers can purchase both packaged games as usual at retail locations nationwide. Or they can simply purchase and download the game on their own from the Nintendo eShop using a wireless broadband connection. Regardless of the purchasing method, both Art Academy: Lessons for Everyone! and Crosswords Plus sell at a suggested retail price of $29.99 each. Also, Club Nintendo members who purchase either of these games through the Nintendo eShop and register them before Jan. 6, 2013, will receive a download code for the Donkey Kong: Original Edition gamefor free. This is a special version of Donkey Kong with content never before seen in the U.S. and is not available for purchase.

Remember that Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo 3DS XL feature parental controls that let adults manage the content their children can access. For more information about this and other features, visithttp://www.nintendo.com/3ds.

About Nintendo: The worldwide pioneer in the creation of interactive entertainment, Nintendo Co., Ltd., of Kyoto, Japan, manufactures and markets hardware and software for its Wii™ home console, Nintendo 3DS™ and Nintendo DS™ family of portable systems. Since 1983, when it launched the Nintendo Entertainment System™, Nintendo has sold more than 3.9 billion video games and more than 630 million hardware units globally, including the current-generation Wii, Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo DS, Nintendo DSi™ and Nintendo DSi XL™, as well as the Game Boy™, Game Boy Advance, Super NES™, Nintendo 64™ and Nintendo GameCube™ systems. It has also created industry icons that have become well-known, household names such as Mario™, Donkey Kong™, Metroid™, Zelda™ and Pokémon™. A wholly owned subsidiary, Nintendo of America Inc., based in Redmond, Wash., serves as headquarters for Nintendo’s operations in the Western Hemisphere. For more information about Nintendo, please visit the company’s website at http://www.nintendo.com.

[PR Email from Nintendo]

About the author:

Jeremy’s love of gaming, especially Nintendo started in the late 80’s when his parents bought him and his older brother an NES. Many hours were spent playing Mario and Duck Hunt. Eventually Jeremy graduated to bigger and better games and systems, like the SNES, GC, Wii, 3DS, and finally to the Wii U. Ask him what the defining moment of his childhood gaming was and he’ll answer, “the day I beat Zelda 2.” To this day that game holds a special place in his heart. His favorite types of games are platformers.

Jeremy started blogging for NintendoFuse in October 2010. He started off as a lurker on the forums who won a free copy of And Yet It Moves on WiiWare. From there he realized he liked the forums and the site and wanted to remain a part of it. He was brought on board shortly thereafter and has helped post news and reviews for the past couple of years. Currently Jeremy has taken a step back to focus on family and school. He assists in minor back-end site maintenance from time to time.